Facebook

DISCLAIMER: Please note that I do not work for ABC company nor am I affiliated with them in any way. The following blog post is for academic purposes only.

While regularly posting to your company’s social media profiles is extremely important, this means nothing if your posts aren’t performing well. How do you measure the impact and effectiveness of your social media initiatives? How can you tell if your posts are driving business or whether they’re receiving a lot of fan interaction? This is where analytics comes in. According to Social Media Today, social analytics aggregates and analyzes online conversations and social activity generated across social channels and enables organizations to act on the derived intelligence to drive business results. In other words, analytics provides you with concrete data to help you determine if you’re on the right track with your social media business model.

Below, I will be taking a look at the Facebook and email analytics for ABC company, a health-oriented business in the Central Florida area. The company has a Facebook page, shown below, a Twitter account, a Pinterest page and a YouTube channel. ABC company also sends out a bi-weekly e-newsletter through Bronto Software, which provides a cloud-based marketing platform for retailers to drive revenue through their email, mobile and social campaigns.

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights is the platform’s free built-in analytics package. It helps your company make sense of its social media analytics and lets you see how each individual piece of content is connecting with your audience. Using Facebook Insights, your company can see how well certain types of content, including photos, videos, links, and questions, perform in comparison with each other. I will be analyzing the Facebook analytics for ABC company so that I can see what they’re doing well and what needs improvement.

Overview

As you take a look at the above image taken from ABC company’s Facebook page, you can see that the page has received a total of 880 likes, which is a 69 percent increase from the previous time period. This shows that ABC company is doing well in terms of generating page likes. From a marketing perspective, a Facebook like can be the most powerful tool Facebook has to offer. Every time someone “Likes” your page or something on it, he or she exposes it to all their friends, who then have the opportunity to expose it to their friends. In addition, 340,325 friends of fans liked ABC company fan page, which was a 1.31 percent increase. While the company should be happy that it saw an increase in this area, I think it needs to do a better job of attracting friends of their current fans to ensure that this number will be higher in the future. During this time, ABC company had 46 people talking about them, which refers to the number of people who liked, commented or shared their content. Unfortunately, this was a 50.54 percent decrease. Based on this information, it looks like ABC company needs to do a better job of engaging its customers through more interesting posts. Finally, ABC company had a weekly total reach of 5,740, which was an almost 40 percent increase from the week before. In Facebook terms, reach refers to the number of people who have seen your posts. Based on this information, it appears that while lots of people are seeing ABC company’s posts, they are opting not to interact with them. Lets find out why.

On ABC company’s overview page, you can see a breakdown of how each of their posts from May 27-June 2 performed. Facebook Insights provides the reach; the number of engaged users, or the number of people who click on your posts; the number of people who are talking about a specific post; and the virality of a post, or the percentage of people who have created a story from your Page post out of the total number of unique people who have seen it. In other words, the more people engage with your content in relation to how many unique people have seen it determines a particular post’s virality. In the post types section, you can see that the post with the highest level of engagement, which was sent out on May 29, reached 509 people, had 13 users engaged, 10 people talking about it and a virality of 1.96 percent. The post with the highest virality was the National Cancer Survivors Day post the company sent out on June 2. The timeliness of this post was likely the reason behind this.

Reach

ABC company’s target audience on Facebook is in the 25-24 age range with the majority, 28.6 percent being females. More than 5,100 of these fans live in the United States and the majority live in Orlando, which makes sense because this is where ABC company is based. English is the primary language of those logging on, but based on this information provided, fans in Spanish speaking countries seem to also be taking an interesting the company’s Facebook posts.

In terms of reach, ABC company seems to be performing better with viral posts than with organic and paid ones.

Talking About This

ABC Company saw a decrease in the number of people who were talking about the company on April 28 and those who were talking about it on June 2. But the company does seem to be making improvements in this area. After all, their June 2 post was the one that had the most virality.

Bronto

The above screenshot shows the analytics for an e-newsletter ABC company sent out on May 21. According to this report, the company sent this newsletter to 2,624 people. 2,606 people received the email, meaning that there were only 18 bounce backs. Eighteen out of about 2,600 isn’t bad at all, so it seems that ABC company does a good job of keeping up with its customer contact list. That being said, the e-newsletter email could’ve been stronger. Only 661 people opened the email, and 72 of these clicked on it. Unfortunately, none of these people were conversions, and only one forwarded the newsletter to a friend.

There’s always room for improvement

While ABC company currently has a steady number of page views, it’s falling behind in terms of attracting unique visitors to its site. My suggestion would be to make its posts more engaging. While regular status/text posts can be useful, posts of images and even links to an original, high-quality blog article would generate traffic.

Given that most of the company’s traffic is coming from Google, I would recommend that they increase their SEO efforts if they aren’t doing so already. ABC company needs to determine the most appropriate short-tail and long-tail keywords and optimize its site for these words. This would be a great way for them to drive traffic, specifically unique visitors, to their site.

Because females ages 25-34 seem to make up the majority of the page’s traffic, ABC company should try to appeal more to the emotional side of things as well as to health issues that are specifically related to females.

Timely posts with mass appeal, such as the one ABC company sent out on June 2 about National Cancer Survivors Day, are more along the lines of the type of posts they need to be sending out, as these seem to be best received by their followers.

Given that most of its followers are in Orlando, perhaps ABC company could post about specific health concerns that people in the Orlando area might face, be it something as minor as alerting residents of pollen season or something as serious as heart disease or cancer.

In terms of email campaigns, perhaps ABC company could improve its subject line to entice more people to open up these emails. It could also use eye-catching images and be succinct in terms of the length of the text in their emails to convince people to click.

Other channels

ABC company could cross promote in order to increase user engagement and unique visitors to its site. I would recommend that it upload informative, health-related videos to YouTube at least once a week as well as upload eye-catching images to its Pinterest. I think its fans/clients would enjoy seeing infographics that simplify complicated health statistics. Finally, ABC company could utilize hashtags on Twitter to promote discussions, host live Q&A sessions, in which it could answer questions about health concerns people might have, and hold contests.

Future Campaigns and Posts

As I just mentioned, I think the Twitter Q&A sessions would do really well for ABC company. In terms of Facebook, I would recommend that ABC company incorporate more images into its posts and even post daily health facts to educate its followers. The facts could be structured as “Did you know”? posts. In terms of email campaigns, perhaps the company could add a “Sign up for our newsletter” button to its homepage, utilize more effective subject lines, such as “What you need to know about your health this month” and add infographics to the body of its email to instantly draw people in and encourage them to click any links they might’ve included in their email.

Victoria’s Secret serves as a great example of the dos of integrated advertising, or combining several different media channels and tools under one big idea in order to produce a greater experience for the consumer. The largest American retailer of lingerie has an extremely active online and offline presence. But Victoria’s Secret’s marketing success is not new. During Q1 of last year, Expion, a social media management company, ranked Victoria’s Secret in the top 10 retailers in social media. The company utilizes victoriasecret.com, sends daily emails and maintains accounts with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram to build excitement around new collections and events such as the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. It also relies on more traditional forms of advertising, such as TV, print, billboards and direct mail.

Online Advertising

Victoriasecret.com

Victoriasecret.com has a global Alexa ranking of 1,481. It ranks as the 499th most popular website in the U.S. The site is very easy to navigate and contains many large, high-quality images of models showcasing the latest items. It maintains a consistent color scheme of pink, black, white and gray throughout. Besides the eye-catching photos of its models, what immediately draws people to the site is the fact that the first image is always promoting a current sale that its having. Who doesn’t love a good deal?!

Email Blasts

I signed up to receive daily email promotions from Victoria’s Secret about a year ago. While I don’t always get the chance to take advantage of them, I find the company’s choice of images in its email blasts as well as the email subject lines to be extremely engaging. Through these emails campaigns, the company does a great job of making women look and feel beautiful and making sure its customers are aware of current in-store and online promotions.

Facebook: 25,300,751 likes

Last year’s Expion study found that Victoria’s Secret and fellow social media powerhouse Walmart were posting on Facebook about twice as often as other brands. The week of 5/25/14 Victoria’s Secret received as many as 37,600 likes on one of its posts. The company posts approximately two to three eye-catching photos a day of gorgeous models, new products and current promotions. It also does a great job of utilizing its Facebook to handle customer questions and issues.

Twitter: 3.97 million followers

The company has an extremely active presence on Twitter, posting to its profile an average of three to four times a day. What I like most about its Twitter is that it answers as many of its customers’ tweets as it possibly can, regardless of whether the customer has a complaint, a question or is simply stating that they recently purchased a product from the retailer.

YouTube: 462,349 subscribers

The Victoria’s Secret YouTube channel features more than 425 videos, including behind-the-scenes footage, TV commercials and exclusive interviews with the Victoria’s Secret Angels.

Pinterest: 181,350 followers

Victoria’s Secret’s Pinterest has 25 boards and 4,170 pins. It posts the same images it already does on its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, plus so many more. If you ever wanted to get an inside look at every model and product photo imaginable, this is the place to do so.

Instagram: 4,534,152 followers

As of today, Victoria’s Secret has posted 1,267 photos to its Instagram. Almost every photo has more than 100,000 likes. The company averages between two and three posts a day that feature its models, also known as Angels, product shots and even some videos. The Victoria’s Secret Angels each have their own Instagrams, so loyal Victoria’s Secret customers have the option to follow them as well.

One of Victoria’s Secret’s greatest marketing strategies has been to heavily promote its models. Victoria’s Secret’s models, known as “Angels,” are a major part of the brand’s image, appearing in the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, catalogs, stores and advertisements. The website features a “VS All Access” section for learning more about the group, which includes Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio. Unlike other retailers, Victoria’s Secret wants its customers to really get to know the women who are modeling its products.

But wait…there’s more

Victoria’s Secret also utilizes print, billboard and TV advertisements to promote its brand. Loyal customers can expect to receive notifications of product promotions via direct mail and see advertisements strategically placed in their favorite magazines. Victoria’s Secret is also known for buying billboard advertising in key locations, such as on the side of buses, and in high-traffic areas, such as Time Square.

Overall, Victoria’s Secret’s integrated marketing communications strategy is top notch. It is both consistent and engaging.

At the end of last year, a study came out saying that Facebook was ‘dead and buried’ for teens in the U.K. Curious to find out whether Facebook was ‘dead and buried’ in the U.S., I created an electronic survey on SurveyMonkey to find out more about Facebook use among Americans of various ages. I used a snowball sample to arrive at my results and spread the word about it via social media. In total, 115 people responded to my survey; however, because I was using the free version of SurveyMonkey, I was only allowed to document 100 responses.

My Results

Gender and Age

Of those who responded to my survey, 73% were female and 27% were male. The majority of the people, 32%, fell into the 18-24 range. Those in the 25-34 were a close second, coming in at 28%, and the third highest group was the 45-54 range, coming in at 26%. Unfortunately, I did not receive responses from anyone under 17, which is likely because this group has deemed Facebook to be uncool, but also because I don’t interact with many teens. I also didn’t receive any responses from the 75 and up crowd, so it seems most grandparents don’t use Facebook.

What do you primarily use Facebook for?

As I suspected, the majority of people, 84%, use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family. Five percent said they use it to keep up with current events and 4% for professional or networking reasons. No one selected the “to share articles” option. While I think many people use Facebook to share interesting articles they find, it’s not their primary reason for using the site.

About how often do you view or access Facebook?

Despite a drop in teen use, it seems that most Americans above 18 are still addicted to Facebook in some manner. The majority, 81.82%, of my respondents admitted to logging on to Facebook multiple times a day. About 10% said that they log on once a day and about 4% a few times a week. Only three of the respondents said that they log on to Facebook less than a few times a week.

Have you ever deleted your Facebook account?

Seventy-eight percent said that they had never deleted their Facebook account, and 22% claimed to have deleted it at one point but later chose to reactivate it. No one ended up selecting the “yes, and I do not plan to reactivate it” or “I’ve never had a Facebook” responses, so it seems that the majority of Americans are still attached to their Facebook account.

Why did you delete your Facebook account?

I wanted to include this question to find out more about those people who have, at some point, deactivated their Facebook account. The majority of respondents who fell into this category said that Facebook took up too much of their time. This was followed by those who felt Facebook was boring/that they didn’t use it as much. Only one person claimed to have left Facebook because their parents/relatives joined, which has been cited as a top reason for the decline in teen use.

What do you like most/least about Facebook?

This was my only free-response question. While it was the hardest to quantify, I felt it was necessary to include it.

What people tend to like most

It’s not just pictures; it’s articles, videos, peoples’ opinions all in one.

Being able to see what friends and family are up to without having to pick up the phone and call every week.

It keeps them up to date on current events.

It’s innovative and changes with the times.

Posting pictures

What people tend to like least

Lack of privacy

Facebook ads cluttering their newsfeed

Constant updates to the platform

When people post obnoxious things or complain

Please rank the following social media networks in order of preference: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+

The results in order of most to least popular are: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+. My prediction is that, in the coming years, Google+ will make top three.

Since last year, how has your Facebook activity changed?

Fifty-one percent said that they access Facebook about the same as they did last year, 25% more than they did last year and 23% less than they did last year. The fact that most people are accessing it about the same as they did last year means that the social media network may have already reached its peak. The fact that 1/4 of the respondents access it more than they did last year may be a result of the fact that many of those who took my survey are social media masters students and likely access Facebook for work.

How strongly do you agree or disagree with the statement ‘Facebook is dead and buried’?

Most still consider Facebook to be going strong, as 49% strongly disagree with this statement. Twenty-nine percent somewhat disagree, 15% are neutral about this statement, 6% somewhat agree and only 1% strongly disagree.

What I could’ve done differently

While my survey was able to show Facebook use among Americans overall, the free version of SurveyMonkey made it difficult for me to look specifically at which age groups were more active than others. Perhaps I could’ve found a way around this by selecting a purposive sample instead of opening up my survey to the general population.

If time had permitted, I would’ve found a way to seek out teens to take my survey.

By posting my survey on Facebook, I was automatically attracting regular Facebook users. Those who have a Facebook but rarely log on likely didn’t see my survey, and therefore did not take it.

I would’ve added the following four answer choices to the question that asked why people deleted their Facebook: “I deleted it while applying for jobs/school”, “Too much drama,” “I had privacy concerns,” “I kept comparing my life to my Facebook friends’ lives.” I think having these answer choices would’ve provided me with more accurate results.

While I enjoyed having a free-response question, it was difficult to quantify the results for this. Instead of answering what they like most and least about Facebook, many people only answered part of the question. Next time, I’d ask it as two separate questions.

Facebook Use Among Different Age Groups

This week’s lecture and readings focused on how to use surveys and questionnaires. For our assignment, we were asked to familiarize ourselves with OpinionLab, Qualtrics, and SurveyMonkey, and then pick one of these services to help answer a research question we may be considering. After researching the three services, I concluded that SurveyMonkey would work best for what I was trying to achieve. OpinionLab seemed to be more for customer feedback, and Qualtrics was more academic-research based. Because I had never created a survey before, I wanted to make sure I chose a service that was straightforward and extremely user friendly.

I have decided to survey different age groups about their Facebook use. I first became curious about this topic at the end of last year when a study declared that Facebook was ‘dead and buried’ among UK teens. While I don’t know that many teens, this claim got me thinking…is Facebook use and enthusiasm waning among the youth in America as well? And how does it compare to Facebook use and enthusiasm among those 35 and up?

It’s safe to say that 99% of my friends, those ranging in age from about 21-34, have a Facebook and continue to use it weekly. This social media network continues to be a popular way for Millennials to connect with each other after meeting at an event or in class. In fact, almost everyone in my social media masters program has a Facebook. While these students do have other social media accounts, it seems that the majority use Facebook more often than they use their other social media networks. The same holds true for me. I have accounts with Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn but still log on to Facebook more than any of the others. If Facebook use really is waning, then why does the network continue to be No. 1 among my friends?

While Facebook use among Millenials continues to be up for debate, in the last few years, it seems that the 35 and up demographic has steadily increased its Facebook use. I would venture to say that about half of the parents I know, my dad included, are on Facebook. Just to give you an idea of how much Facebook use among this generation is increasing – I solicited my dad’s help in spreading the word about my survey to his Facebook friends. He posted a status about it at 7 a.m., and by the time he left the house at 7:20 a.m., he had already received five comments from people saying they had completed the survey. Why is this demographic so interested in having a presence on Facebook?

My survey consists of the following questions.

What is your gender?

What is your age?

What do you primarily use Facebook for?

About how often do you view or access Facebook?

Have you ever deleted your Facebook account?

Why did you delete your Facebook account?

What do you like most/least about Facebook?

Please rank the following social media networks in order of preference: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+

Since last year, how has your Facebook activity changed?

How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Facebook is dead and buried.

With this survey, I’m hoping to find out who’s on Facebook and why and ultimately determine what Facebook can do to keep its current users engaged. As the SEO specialist and social media manager at my company, it is my job to figure out how to gain more followers on Facebook and what kind of posts will be most engaging. It would be interesting to learn how to better attract the 35 and up demographic because that is who makes up my company’s target customer base.

Stay tuned for the results in next week’s post! In the meantime, if you’d like to help me in my quest for knowledge, please feel free to take my survey.